James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity is a hard boiled crime fiction novel, classified as one of the best of roman noir. It is one of the definitive works of detective fiction that I am reading. I plan to read more of the major works of this era. Double Indemnity was originally written as a serial in Liberty magazine in 1936. Director Billy Wilder co-wrote the 1944 film adaptation of the same name with writer Raymond Chandler that starred Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. This is a story full of irony and cynicism. I enjoyed reading it. The author’s style is very straight forward with a pretty good pace that made this book a fast read. The basic premise is thus: an insurance agent infatuated with a seductive housewife is persuaded to kill her husband and commit insurance fraud.
The story is set in 1930s California. Insurance agent, Walter Huff, is a 15 year veteran in selling insurance. There isn’t very much that gets by him in terms of fraud. He knows people and their nature. It doesn’t take him long to find out that Phyllis Dietrichson wants her husband dead. Her innocent “act” doesn’t fool him one bit but…Walter falls for her-hard and allows himself to be complicit in a scheme of murder and fraud. Phyllis’s husband is a wealthy oil man who travels. With coaching from Walter, they both trick him into signing an accidental policy. Together they try to think of a way to make his death look like a “railroad accident” so that they can claim the insurance money and cash in on the double indemnity. There’s some tension in getting the plan together and getting their stories straight. However, as the narrative progresses, the apparent plot begins to dissolve into the revealed plot, after revelations and other characters, namely Phyllis’s step-daughter, Lola, are brought into the story. Things get complicated afterwards.
This crime fiction novella is told in first person narrative – from Walter’s point of view. He addresses the reader in certain instances within the narrative. Walter isn’t a bad guy. Not at all. He’s in love and where money is scarce during these harsh, economic times, he’s looking for his payday. Phyllis is a femme fatale in every sense of the word. Her past is fleshed out more thoroughly and it isn’t very good and adds more worry on Walter. What’s interesting is watching Walter rationalize his actions and finding himself coming up way short. As with all great plans something goes awry. Walter becomes scared to death and anxious. He begins to have doubts about Phyllis and worries over the other agents at his job catching onto him. Needless to say the couple’s relationship turns tumultuous when things begin to truly fall apart. To quote Walter: “That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate.” His future and his peace of mind is all dependent on Phyllis, a woman with a shady past. It’s a power dynamic that doesn’t sit well with Walter and moves him to continue to react foolishly and dig himself into a deeper hole.
Overall, this is a good story. I anticipated problems and complications but I had no idea of the outcome. Speaking of those complications they seemed quite credible to me and weren’t contrived. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to reach the denouement. The suspense was ramped up when Lola’s introduced. She and Walter develop a bond. Also, his making sure he covered his ass on everything was also suspenseful. There’s an agent at his job who loves nothing better than to rule out an accident so that they are not liable for paying the claim. So much of my theory on how the story would end was shot down in part. I did guess some of it right but not all of it. The ending though: don’t know what to think of it after rereading it multiple times. Meanwhile, I plan to seek out more books by James. M. Cain who also wrote Mildred Pearce and The Postman Always Rings Twice. As I write this, the movie version of Double Indemnity is available on Netflix: DVD and streaming if you have an interest. Read somewhere that the movie is better than the book.
